The Things I’ve Seen

“I did not tell half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed.” - Marco Polo on his deathbed, 1324, apparently? Uncharted said so.

“I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain.” Pierre de Fermat, though that was about maths.

This issue we’re going to talk about President Truman’s home away from home, the Little White House, and the Hemingway Pfeiffer House which was never his house but his second wife’s house. I should probably rewrite that last sentence because fellow Oxford Comma aficionados will tell me, “hey, that’s ambiguous there, you wrote that you saw three things but there’s only two there!” Sorry all. Language is by its nature an interface to the far more abstract, and by its own definition imperfect. Also I’m just really lazy and this is a real shoestring budget operation. The crack editorial staff ¹ isn’t really designed for detailed grammatical feedback - they’re more volunteering their time to keep me on task, which hey, I’m not on, so let’s go!

Oh! One note: Hemingway Pfeiffer House is next issue. Sorry! I’m past my self-imposed deadline and this is long enough as it is.

The Little White House

President Franklin Deleano Roosevelt, inaugurated to his fourth term on the 20th of January, was in a weird spot. He was president before the 20th Amendment passed, meaning his first inauguration was 4 March 1933. That made his first term the shortest full term, but also, he was the now the longest serving President in U.S. history. He survived one of the more interesting assassination attempts, where like something out of a movie, Giuseppe Zangara jumped on a bench, pulled his pistol, aimed…and was struck by a purse, knocking his arm and mortally wounding Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak. Engraved on Cermak’s tomb are the words: “I'm glad it was me, not you,” refering to his death in Roosevelt’s place. Five people were hit including Cermak, and Mrs. Lillian Cross (the purse-wielding changer of history) had powder burns on her face. Wild.

But that was almost twelve years before today’s story. On 20 January 1945, Roosevelt was inaugurated a fourth time. The 22nd Amendment, passed in 1947 and ratified in 1951, laid out th eligibility requirements for future presidents to avoid the appearances of kings in the future. He served so long that he went through three vice presidents, last of all Truman, who was briefed that he should not expect Roosevelt to survive his term. But even Truman was surprised when Roosevelt died in the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia on April 12th, 1945. And no…not the Little White House that we’re talking about today.

Truman fell directly into the seat that would soon be near the Big Red Button. He was briefed that the US was developing a highly destructive weapon, “the most terrible bomb in the history of the world,” in his words. He had a lot going on, and all of a sudden found himself under a lot of stress. On Roosevelt’s death, Eleanor Roosevelt reportedly told Truman “Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now!”

Sorry, The TRUMAN Little White House

Those troubles got to Truman, and on doctor’s orders he needed a break in 1946. Chester W. Nimitz, a Fleet Admiral, had just visited Key West Naval Station and needed a way to draw attention to our languishing resources in a location that often got a lot of attention as a strategic location during wartime, and was ignored otherwise. He just so happened to have two officers’ quarters in a building near the shore, ready to house an executive branch for some R&R. A win-win, Truman took his first visit to the Truman Little White House. When his presidency was done, he would spend 175 days in office here, almost 10% of his term.

Rest and Relaxation were apparently the names of his vices, gambling and drinking. Sorry, I’m not relaying what I was told faithfully: Truman would refer to his morning bourbon as his “medicine”. Gambling was also a path to socializing, a way to build camaraderie for those attending. With his return visits, the Little White House was renovated to his tastes, including a parlor with a custom poker table and a bar. The poker table had a custom cover made to look like a round dining room table, which is how it spent most of its time: looking like a round dining table in a parlor where a dining room and properly outfitted dining room table stood in stately form. I’m sure it went unnoticed.

One thing that caught my eye, a bottle of Old Grand-Dad was the only liquor present. I was told it was chosen intentionally as one of his preferred choices, though from other stories told later and some light reading on the subject, I don’t think he was too particular as long as it was bourbon and it was in his hand. I respect that. It was pretty neat seeing Old Grand-Dad in play. I wouldn’t call it a best-kept secret, but the Bottled in Bond is a pretty good bang for your buck if you’re into that kind of thing.

The poker table was custom built out of collections and donations from friends in town, but everything else was acquired as Government property. The docents pointed out the history of several pieces of furniture in every room. This being the Navy, full of career civil servants, they had every item in that house inventoried with a complete chain of custody back to its acquisition. Some of those records were lost to time, but we could trace some things back over 100 years. Some was bought for the President, but much of the furnishings were in the system already and just repurposed. When the Little White House fell into disrepair, they were repurposed again, stored, or just left in place. When it came time to open the museum, items Truman used were able to be located and donated, decades later. If you ever want someone who is incredibly responsible and frugal, you want a career government servant. Nobody in private industry even comes close to how careful these folks are with every penny.

While there was a Presidential “yacht”, outfitted with all the modern communication and portable technological facilites much like Air Force One today, he preferred to work from shore and recreate on fishing boats. Ever frugal, even his joy rides used existing government property instead of buying new. Well, that’s not at all what happened here, but Truman did take the first Presidential submarine dive in 1966. If that sound is you tabbing over to Wikipedia to find out when the U.S. Built its first nuclear submarine, I’ll save you the click: the first SSBN (Ship, Submersible, Ballistic, Nuclear Powered, in my best Patrick Stewart impression) was the USS George Washington, in a class all its own (the George Washington class). It was commissioned in 1959, 13 years too late for us. The first nuclear powered submarine was the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), commissioned in 1958. Still too late. But, we are in the nuclear age, and credit given for the guess. We just weren’t that on the ball adapting our new bomb tech yet.

No, President Truman decided to board the U-2513, a captured German U-Boat. It dived over 400 feet with the President on board, which I’m sure gave a lot of people the heebie jeebies. When I was fact checking a few things against Wikipedia, it says that President Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to travel on a submarine. I’m not going to dive into this, because this is a side quest: it’s not a thing I’ve seen. The U-2513 was sunk in 1951, finally resting in 213 feet of water at 24°52.015′N 83°18.594′W. This was years after President Truman got off the ship, by the way. In case that wasn’t clear.

ANYWAY

Truman came to the Little White House 11 times as President, and to Key West afterwards many times more to visit the many friends he made in town. He got here many ways - a fun fact is, since “you can’t get there from here”, even flying in at that point meant he was traveling on the nascent Overseas Highway. Franklin Deleano Roosevelt was the first president to tour the highway in 1939, once work to convert the washed out Overseas Railroad was finished, but Truman would’ve been the first President to travel it after several realignments, and there’s probably a bridge or two in there he got to break in.

Work

I’ve been making light, A lot of work was done here. One of the cooler things in my mind was he approved changes to the Vice Presidential Seal. It’s very similar to today’s seal, and was aligned to match the President’s Seal, with the big change being that the eagle for the first time looked to the olive branch, not the arrows. America, having participated in two World Wars, the first of which was supposed to end all wars, really wanted to have enough. It’s pretty clear in general (not from this tour) that suddenly being presented with The Bomb in late April and dropping it by early August, barely 3 months later, was a real weight on him. And as it should be - what a massive decision. My blood ran a little cold when I thought about what it would look like for someone to live through all that and decide, nah man, war is rad.

Obviously war was found, several times, in short order, but I thought it was interesting. Allegedly that was signed at his desk, a very understated brother to the Resolute Desk in Washington, D.C. Amongst other things, Truman worked on the creation of the Department of Defense, the Berlin airlift, the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), key parts of the Marshall Plan, and the founding of the CIA from this very desk. I’m not judging any of these things, just relaying a lot got done here.

Play

He also goofed off. Apparently he was super into Hawaiian shirts, and would hold contests in town. Our tour guide said he was single-handedly responsible for popularizing the Hawaiian shirt in town. Apparently until then anyone wearing a shirt style like that would wear the Guayabera, very likely from Cuban influence. Remember, we were still friends with Cuba for much of Truman’s run. Anyway, this sounded like so much smoke being blown in my face I could unilaterally decided the next Pope, but I noticed floral prints were more popular in my Key West visit. It might be my bias: I’ve just never come around to the four-pocket layout, but I’ll admit that otherwise they are very handsome.

Truman was involved in a scandal that managed to be buried. You probably haven’t heard of this one, so I’m sharing now. I heard this at the house, and it’s on pages 129-130 of Presidents in Paradise, which I recommend. A young Wesley Saunders, 13 at the time, asked his father Captain Willard Saunders, if he could go fishing with the President. Up the chain of command the request went, and it was approved! The young Bill (as he was known at the time) joined the President and his extensive contingent for a fishing expedition, complete with photos with the President.

But unknown to the President, who probably had bigger things on his mind, Bill told him that he was skipping school. Skipping school! Truman, contributing to truancy! And, what’s worse, instead of dragging him back to school, physically, by the ear, which I understood to be the custom of the era, he called out “Get a pad!” He wrote young Bill an excuse to give to his principal directly. The Presidential pardon, Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, was in full exercise that day, with collaborators handing him pads and pens. I could really go for some scandals like that these days.

After the Presidency

As these things have gone, the naval station on which the Truman Little White House sat was closed in the late 60s and by 1974, much of the base had been decommissioned. The Little White House was put on the Register of Historic Places, but that did little to save the property. Even the “Harry S. Truman Annex” sign was removed. Don’t worry - it’s back! Thank the city of Key West and very responsible public servants for preserving history. The property sat abandoned, collected the forgotten of Key West, and suffered a minor fire. The remaining parcel on which the Little White House stood was sold at auction in 1986 to a developer, and much of the land is now very pricey residences. “Its importance was recognized” is all that was said, and I’m not digging further, but the developer was convinced not to level the building which was in a greatly neglected state. A funny anecdote here: it had iron plumbing, not common for buildings of its era, because as was stated in a letter dated January 25, 1890 by the base commander, “lead pipe was not so healthy for general use.” That probably was nearing the end of its useful life, though, as poorly maintained as things were.

Anyway, the property was turned into a museum which changed hands a few times until it fell into the ownership of what is now Historic Tours of America, and at the time in 1999 was primarily runnign Historic Town Trolley Tours in Key West. The General Manager of that arm, Bob Wolz, was offered the opportunity to take over the Truman Little White House which needed much work. Yep, if you’ve been skipping ahead, that’s the Robert “Bob” Wolz who wrote Presidents in Paradise. And yes, if you’re keeping score, a trolley tour company ended up restoring and preserving the Truman Little White House. It was a killer tour, and you can see the house is still today going through renovations to, ironically, modernize the house in a historically accurate way.

This got a whole issue, by the way, because it was a great tour. If you want to see things I’ve seen, this is one of the big ones.

And that’s the thing I saw

I know I said Hemingway Pfeiffer House was up, but…(1) I didn’t finish the book I was reading to support it, (2) I’m already late on this issue, and (3) it’s long enough, and I still cut aggressively. You missed stories like the Orange Wars, and strong-arming the FCC to adjust a radio broadcast license for a few hours to hear his daughter perform solo over wireless. Those stories are all in Presidents in Paradise though, so if you want to know more check that out.

Want to offer some kind of support? Thanks, that’s kind! I don’t need it though. I just dropped a donation at Wikipedia though, since I referenced them, so…maybe throw them a few bucks?

References

• [Presidents in Paradise: The Legacy of the Harry S. Truman Little White House](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41028413-presidents-in-paradise) by Robert Wolz and Barbara Hayo

• A few select wikipedia references: [U-2513](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-2513), [USS Nautilus (SSN-571)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nautilus_(SSN-571)), [USS George Washington (SSBN-598)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_George_Washington_(SSBN-598)), [Nuclear Submarines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_submarine)

Thanks for joining me, where I’m one of today’s lucky 10,000! I hope you enjoyed it. Here’s all the beehiiv stuff that is required to be here.

— Lou

1  Hi all! Thanks!